Fantasy Football Podcast 2015 - First Round Runnings Backs, Fantasy Face-off, Mailbag

So here's a thing. I don't even know what that means. I know last year. Last year, last year there was, he was not the number one running back.

in Cincinnati for at least half the season, probably three quarters of the season, you could say he was not the clear cut number one. And he is going to be the clear cut number one. He's going to get improvement. You want a player whose trajectory, you know, ended the season strong and was showing that they're going to use him more. And then I was blown away to see that given that take, given the fact that he wasn't being used nearly as much as they could have used, especially the entire first half the season, he had 222 carries.

I mean, that's what Jamal Charles had. That's what Jamal Charles was going to get this year. So your baseline, you don't have to be scared. You talked about the Trident Truary and Foster or the new up-and-comer, but I'm not scared of the new up-and-comer. I'm not thinking that, you know, he's a boom or bust guy. His bust is going to be pretty high. And look at this. In college, he averaged, he set the record for the SEC at 6.9 yards per carry. Is that good?

That is a record that is not going to be broken any minute. That's like four Trent Richardson's running at the same time. So, I mean, his carries are going to go up. Some of your stats you just talked about, Mike, about his yards after contact. He's a phenomenal back that's going to be used better in a good system. I love him. I'm full on board, Jeremy Hill. He should also cut this segment up and play it before every game.

Because we are building him up, but it's true. I think he's a guy that, you know, very rarely do the ADPs match the finishing positions. We know that. We actually just went through the other day. We were trying to identify some of the busts at the running back position over the last few years, the percentages of running backs in the top 10 ADP that do bust. But the reality is that Jeremy Hill is one of those candidates to be able to, you can get him at a different place and he could finish in that top two, top three.

easily. He's going to, he will go, I believe, in the beginning of the second round, is I think where he'll be taken. Oh, that's fantastic. Beautiful, right? And that's what's important in knowing our rankings. Our rankings here aren't necessarily where you should draft a guy. They're where we're expecting them to finish up. You've got to go with the ADP there and see your true values. And Jeremy Hill, if you can get him in the second.

you know, grab a wide receiver. You know, if you're near the back end of round one where you're going to be quick to the turn and there's a couple more running backs on the board and it looks, you know, from ADP that Hill will be around in the second. Goodness gracious. Oh, yes. It would be amazing to be able to grab a Calvin or a Julio and then flip around and grab Hill on the backside of the... That would be a first two-round success. Agreed. So let's move it on to... Oh, face off.

That's right. Let's do it, buddy. Well, Andy, since you are the one that is against the world, I will allow you to go first. All right. So everybody loves C.J. Anderson. Everybody in their mother. Everybody loves every running back that is attached to Peyton Manning. And I don't blame them for that. Mike, were you going to say something before I get started here? I just, I will be measuring this fantasy face-off as the judge. Okay. Because I would like to be, I want to hear these opinions and see if they can sway.

how I feel about C.J. Anderson. Well, this will be exciting then. Everybody likes C.J. Anderson. Everybody has him. Let's look at the ranks real quick before we get into this. I have him at 11. Okay, so let's be sure that you understand. I'm not throwing him out of my...

running back in tension. He's outside my top 10, though. He's still in the car. He's not been tossed onto the... Right now, Mike and I have him at 7. However, my stats, when I... Seven. When I statted guys for a full season, I put him at number 2. He finished for my stats at number 2. I drop him to number 7 in my rankings because of some of the things you're going to talk about. But I think he has the chance to finish extremely high. So, Andy, tell me why I'm wrong. Here's why I am scared.

of C.J. Anderson. Now, the zone rushing schemes, we always want to talk about Gary Kubiak, what he does with these one-cut runners. I admit, C.J. Anderson is a good player. He's a good runner, and his scheme is complimentary to C.J. Anderson's talents. However, last season, here's exactly what was said. Pierce has the best transition into Gary Kubiak's zone blocking scheme. Bernard Pierce was the talk of last off season. Plus, we know that.

Gary Kubiak is not putting his exact system in place. He's coming in and he's adjusting to what Peyton Manning wants to manage and wants to do on the offense. So I think some of whatever benefits he has to the running game get negated a little bit because of that. Now last year you had Monte Ball. He was that beautiful draft pick in the top five, six, seven running backs last year. He was limited to five games. We know that. He had a groin injury. He says he's coming back. He wants to win the starting job. But here's the catch. Monte Ball is not very good.

He's not a good player. He's 24. Breaking news. Yeah, I don't like him. You know I don't like, you know I don't like Monte Ball. I'm not saying he's good, but he is a second round draft pick. He's got $1.6 million guaranteed coming his way. C.J. Anderson is undrafted. He's cheap. I'm not saying that I believe Monte Ball is a better player, but what I'm saying is that I believe C.J. Anderson is a risk. He's not a bad player. He's a good player. He was a pro ball player last year, but he's not going to get handed that job outright.

That's what I'm saying. He's not Eddie Lacey. He's not March on Lynch. I wouldn't be surprised if he's platooning with Ball. And in fact, Gary Kubiak came out last year and he said that in Baltimore, he said, he doesn't believe you can hand it off to one guy anymore. That's what Kubiak came out and said. And last year, we handed the keys to the fantasy Lamborghini to Monte Ball.

in the preseason, and everybody went crazy over him, and they burned a top pick on a guy who's unproven, and it's not what I want to spend my first rounder on. And you have C.J. Anderson, Monte ball, Juan Thompson, who, by the way, averaged 5.0 a carry last year, and Ronnie Hillman, all competing on that depth chart, all dealing with a certain amount of carries to be distributed. I think that if you bet on C.J. Anderson, you are playing with fire. I don't think it's impossible that he's the guy the entire year.

But my take is that it's dangerous. It's scary because there are too many guys in that backfield. That backfield was two injured last year, and Gary Kubiak is not going to be putting a one back system into place. So that's my take on CJ. Go ahead and undress me. I like that take. The only thing that I think we need to change is Gary Kubiak needs to officially be called the Coobes.

Okay. That's right. The Coobes is not putting his system into place. Let me talk about the Coobes and get on the other side of this fantasy faceoff. By the way, if you're applying, I'll be quiet and let you talk. If it has Terrell Davis's name in it, I'm going to be very angry with you. It does not have Terrell Davis's name in it. It has Coob's name all over it. All right. Sing it to me. Sing it to me. The Coops. All right. So here's the thing. First and foremost, we've got a unfortunately.

Talk about some of the flawed logic you have and break that down. So you said that Pierce was said to be, you know, the best back for the system. But I don't know who was saying that because coming into the year, it was Ray Rice. Once Ray Rice went down, nobody knew what was going on. And then there was a giant mess. There was a giant mess as to who was going to be the starter. And, yeah, I would say that...

We, the analysts, might have said that Pierce is the best back fit for the system, but Kubiak did not say that. But getting to the more important stuff, you said that you don't think there's going to be a one-back system, and that is my number one thing that I disagree with. Kubiak has always had a running back who is the...

Absolute clear-cut winner. I mean, sure, Ben Tate got the ball and, you know, Talley Farrow got some of the ball, but clearly there was a supreme back that was used the most. You've got Fawcett. You've got Arian Foster. You've got guys that, you know, you don't even remember. You've got Ruben drones and Orlando Gary, who were thousand-yard rushers in Kubiak's one-cut system. So now you say, well, no, he's going to change it. He's not going to use one guy. Well, listen to a quote.

from Gary Kubiak, also known as the Coobes. He said, who is going to be the bell cow? He asked. Who is going to be the three-down player? They have to sort that out. So in fairness to your opinion, it's not completely sorted out, right? But Coobes wants a three-down back. He wants a bell cow. And now that's not according to me or you or Mike. That's according to the Coobes.

The Cubs wants that player. So who is that player going to be?

Well, let's see what he says. Let's see what he says about C.J. Anderson. He says he's a young player who got a big opportunity late last year at the end of the season and took advantage of it. You've seen when guys are going to make big jumps in this league as great players. They usually make them in years one, two, or three, right in there. He made a big jump as a player. And I think he's earned the right to walk into the offseason program or the OTAs and line up as our starter. So that's one thing. Now, he goes on and says, but it's a competition, which is great. What else he going to say?

to a young player. You're going to say, hey, you got the job, just phone it in, and it's yours, and no matter what, you got it. Throw all of that out the window, right? All of that is garbage. Now let's talk about who's the best running back. Last year, early in the season, I was all over CJ Anderson. You know that. I said it.

way early. I said it from preseason on that he is the best back there. As soon as he got any touches, I was like, this guy can play, he is amazing, and he will win the job. When Monty Ball went down, I rushed to the waivers to get C.J. Anderson, and stupidly, they didn't put C.J. Anderson in, right? They put Ronnie Hillman in, and that, he got the chance. And then he got hurt. Right, and it took that to get...

A supreme player in the lineup who, keep in mind, he wasn't the third on Coobes' list. He was the third on a previous regime's list. He got in, and let's see what he did. In six starts, in six games, he put up 23 carries a game, 108 yards per game, 1.3 touchdowns per game. If he did that all season, under a non-Cubes system, he would have been the clear cut by a wide margin number one back in the league.

Coob's coming in and saying he wants a belcow, he wants a three down back. This guy's the starter. He was awesome last year, but it is a competition. I'll grant you that. And he's going to play in my system. You said you always want the running back who plays for Peyton Manning. I say you always want the running back that plays for Coobes, and I want the running back who plays for both. So the upside potential here is higher than Jeremy Hill.

So I would say, no, I'm saying the potential, the ceiling would be the number one clear cut back. So that is where I dropped the microphone. Bam. You heard it here first. Six starts and some off-season chatter is enough to make a career. Well, Mike, lay it out for us. We can't stay on this topic all day. I'd love to rebut, but we'll just go with those two takes. Run away. I believe the takes on the Cubs.

demand for a workhorse running back are very strong uh however do you sound like you're falling asleep i'm not fine i'm trying to be impartial over here you don't need to be

I think the one caveat. I'm the contrarian. I don't mind if you disagree with me. I'm just giving you, this is not fantasy advice. This is fantasy opinion. You take it and you do what you want with it. I'm not saying don't draft C.J. Anderson. I'm saying, be afraid because it happened ironically to the exact same team last year. And I do not disagree with you. He's the best runner. And that does not mean he's going to be the best fantasy running. Yeah, Ronnie Hillman is...